Episode21
Do Necrites have souls? Deep in the bowels of the Necrite Hive we had pushed through the last mucous plug and faced the Queen in her chamber. We decided on a strategy quite quickly; all-in on the Queen! Our hope was that destroying the center of the hive mind would disrupt the other Necrites long enough for us to escape with the Core. Our Animal experts figured it would either go down that way or the surviving Necrites would launch into a death frenzy but we were committed to the plan. We actually tried to negotiate with the queen a couple times during the battle. Before things began we were toying with using our Illusions to avoid the fight but she started it early by grabbing at us with her tentacles. Later, when she formed a necrite-abomination-mouth she seemed willing to work something out but it was either another ruse to delay while she marshalled reinforcements or the thought of giving up 'her' core was a dealbreaker. Either way, negotiations continued in a more 'aggressive' format. It quickly became apparent that the Necrite Queen's armor, while hard to notice at first *ahem*, was actually extremely good. Estimates put it at around AC 110-120 which was very tough to hit. Enter the 'acid volley'. Under the latest AOE rules refinement, the riders affect creatures that cannot move out of the area of effect. We used that to our advantage when Oz filled up the back of the room a couple of times with Bombard volleys doing no DR (RF got it all) but 20 Acid a pop. Once the Queen's armor had been melted down to mortal levels the rest of the party was able to get to work. Kiwi was in there punching/kicking like a squirrel who-is-not-at-all-addicted-to-nanite-action-boosters, Pete warmed up his 'big attack' and then narrowly avoiding killing PC's when he fumbled, and Joe madly swung is mega-cyber axe and hacked out huge queen-chunks. It's unclear how much DC she had but it must have been in the hundreds because she took a LOT of damage. We were all taking hits while focusing on the queen. Most of us lost our armor to either their acid or necrotic attacks. The Queen's tentacle grab was particularly nasty because it prevented us from translocating away. Things looked pretty grim when a worker healed her after we blew her armor off the first time but our strategy won out in the end. By focusing all of our attacks on the Queen we ultimately overcame her formidable defenses and she fell. Thankfully, her death stunned the surviving Necrites and we were able to surgically remove the Core from her corpse. We were concerned that she would follow through on her threat to destroy the core before giving it to us but Kiwi's stun lock-down prevented that from happening. Unfortunately, this Core is not as 'clean' as the other we retrieved. This one appears to have been integrated (or corrupted) in some way with part of the queen's nervous/pulmonary system (?) woven into it. Hopefully, it still works well enough for us to pull information. Maybe the Gineer info-butler is a Necrite in this Core? On the way out we stopped in the Salvage Room to grab some goodies (nice work by Joe to miss most of the hive and then show up for the treasure grab). Oz also grabbed a new Warrior-Necrite pet on the way out. The rest of the Necrites left us alone and we safely emerged from the Hive. Outside, we found that the prophecy-guard were gearing up for a suicidal rescue mission and one of them had already died a horribly mucousy death. Oz plans to revive him once we get some off-time. Next up: we'll see if the NSC is good to their word to let us keep what we find. After that, we've got some squirrels to rescue from the Reavers! 1 combat 11 genaric for the log writer: 11 Academic . Back to Space Junk Log Category:Space Junk